Western civilization is currently gripped in a culture war unlike any that preceded this one. You may ask what makes it so different than the others, considering the West witnessed a similar one of its kind back in the late 1950s with the emergence of the New Left. Arguably, there’s never been a real difference in the left’s rhetoric. For as long as anyone cares to remember, white, heterosexual, “cisgender” men, who maintain the “capitalistic, racialized, cisnormative patriarchy” have always been at the center of their ideological attacks. The only thing that has changed has been their ability to have said rhetoric heard beyond the confines of university lecture halls. It was rare to encounter an enlightened™ human™ bombarding you with vitriol and threats of violence – because you failed to recognize the intersectionality between race™, gender™, and sexuality™ – outside a gender studies class. Of course, these things still occur, but with greater frequency, and to the point where a flash mob of overweight, hipster beta males twerking in tutus in a school’s atrium is viewed as them just “expressing themselves”, but, more boldly, as an act of defiance against conventional norms of masculinity.

Dream Theater will be presenting themselves in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, at the Teatro Minascentro. This event adds to one more high-grade theater venue being defiled by the conformist pop this bands sells out to insecure young adults, and ex-Motley Crue fans going through middle life crisis.

Brazil, like Japan, is one of the go-to countries for any mainstream band seeking international recognition. The metal fandom there is as unoriginal and undescerning in their tastes as in the metal the artists produce. This is why it is not surprising to find 1/10000 bands worth listening to occasionally arising from such geographic locations.

Why write bad reviews at all? Good music is rare, and bad is everywhere, but if you do not explicitly identify the failings of bad, most people will find it appealing because it does not interrupt their steady stream of self-centered thoughts and is easier than seeking good. If you like good music and want more of it, you must bash as well as praise, as Machiavelli would tell you. And with that, the latest installment of the Sadistic Metal Reviews…